Friday Morning Roundup

Today in the roundup: A spooky treat in Oak Lawn, local music notes and a new concert hall at UNT.

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HAUNTED HOUSE:Broken Gears Project Theatre has found a new home for its second season – a house in Oak Lawn. And as it turns out, the space is easily turned into an eerie setting for the group’s season opener, The Pitchfork Disney. The show focuses on a pair of damaged twins who have survived on nothing but chocolate for many years. And before you even meet them, you get a sense of who they are by walking through the performance space, which is set up as their house. “Aspiring to something like Tim Burton manages with his reimagined stories, a perfect alchemy of whimsy and creepy, would be a goal,” Mark Lowry writes on theaterjones.com. “The creative set-up in Broken Gears’ new digs … goes a long way toward arriving there.” Lawson Taitte got a kick out of the experience, too. “A surfeit of religious symbolism will set you thinking, but you might also conclude that the intense script is merely an elaborate prank. Nevertheless, there’s a weird kind of power to the show,” he writes on dallasnews.com. Check it out through Nov. 13.

MUSIC BITS: DJ Shadow talks about his place in hip-hop and his musical influences ahead of tonight’s show at the House of Blues. (DC9 at Night) … Fort Worth’s Hanna Barbarians talk about wanting their first album to be a complete work instead of a singles collection. (fwweekly.com) … Have you captured the Granada Theater in a piece of art? They’d love to hear from ya. (granadatheater.com)

A NEW SPACE IN DENTON: The University of North Texas has a new music performance space. Actually, it’s an old space that’s received a facelift. The university has converted a 625-seat auditorium into the Paul Voertman Concert Hall, a space for chamber music. And Scott Cantrell says the rethinking of the space is solid in his dallasnews.com analysis.

Stephen Becker produces the shows Think and Anything You Ever Wanted to Know for KERA. As part of the Art&Seek team, Stephen produces radio and digital stories, along with the podcast "The Big Screen," with Chris Vognar, movie critic of The Dallas Morning News. View more about Stephen Becker.